Trumpism's most telling and characteristic moments – not its most important, nor cruelest, nor most dangerous, nor most foolish, but potentially its most enlightening – occurred earlier this fall. Over the span of a few weeks, the US president started showing the public his plans for a gilded ballroom two times larger compared to the White House and then began solo dismantling the East Wing portion to erect it.
He has committed acts 10,000 times as bad – the current estimate of deaths resulting from his reductions to USAID amounts to 600,000 and growing, and recently research predicted his energy policies would cause deaths another 1.3 million. However nothing as distinctive. No former leader would have dared – genuinely, no previous leader would have contemplated – solo demolishing large sections of the executive mansion to construct a Versailles-style party room, with the enthusiastic participation of multiple America's wealthiest, almost all of whom have business with the government.
We transitioned from 'the humble will receive the world' into 'the meek shall die of cholera'
As disorienting as it is to observe the president attempt to overturn the traditional concept about democracy and substitute it with its direct contrary, there exists a significant segment among Americans who wouldn't consider it entirely new. That encompasses people such as ourselves – among senior generations almost a majority – who were educated as conventional Protestant believers.
We have observed over the years while conservative evangelical congregations transformed the Christ we were raised with into the complete reverse of our understanding of him. Essentially, they transformed an image of love into a symbol of hostility who blesses specifically the brutality that he denounced in biblical teachings; this has happened more slowly, across decades rather than months, yet it remains disturbing through similar means, a confusing personal impact for numerous individuals.
A Toxic Christianity Takes Hold
Hence I shall explain the Savior from my upbringing, since in theory the Savior is the core of any Christian faith, and since the quickly increasing segment among Americans could have minimal awareness regarding him as they consider themselves skeptics or doubters or religiously unaffiliated. I raise no objection with any of these traditions, nor with any other faith; yet I maintain that exist valuable insights of significant worth in biblical accounts.
It is unquestionably not the narrative of a powerful ruler emerging; instead, a baby is born to homeless parents in an automotive shelter, who must quickly flee to a different country to evade secret police. The child matures in simple surroundings, a laboring woodworker; his teaching concerns compassion for others, particularly for the impoverished – not merely emotional affection, but practical compassion, expressed by feeding and housing. Christ's response to violence is to turn the other cheek – not as a gesture of compliant endurance, but as a method to teach the attacker; his crime policy indicates that whenever an individual takes your outer garment you should give the person your additional clothing too.
The obvious and straightforward reality that the Savior of the gospels requests a form of extreme compassion focused on the impoverished has consistently rendered Christianity somewhat of a provocative belief system: engaging for the masses, but due to its natural unconventionality demanding to be controlled. In the fifties it was contained via weakening – Protestantism was so prevalent that it practically baptized the status quo.
A Conflict for the Highest Within Us
So I have been inspired to observe the steadfast resistance against Trump arise in this past year. It has provided substantial consolation to help build the movement that has taken to the streets through repeated demonstrations, and appears to have motivated citizens to turn out in numbers in interim political contests. We will need to continue it, and in the same spirit, with American flags throughout each rally and requests to the best parts within national heritage.
We will be questioned ... how did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him and receive them or refuse?
The country is optimally secured, to put it differently, by reference to the best within national tradition, exactly as the Christian faith is most protected by relationship to that which renders it distinctive and wonderful, which is the example of Christ. In both situations does it mean pretending the most damaging about the nation and Christianity was nonexistent; it signifies both humility and belief, a mixture that genuine national faithful should embrace.
